The DeFi ecosystem saw a roughly 10% increase in total value locked across all major networks in September, with the total increasing from $12 billion to $133 billion.
According to data from DefiLlama, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and liquid staking protocols were the main contributors to the increase in TVL.
Of the top 10 TVL blockchains, Solana, Base, Sui, and Aptos showed the largest percentage expansion at the end of the third quarter.
Solana boosted by liquid staking
The TVL of Solana’s DeFi ecosystem increased by 17.9% last month, surpassing the $10 billion threshold on September 25 after remaining below that level for approximately 30 days. The growth was primarily fueled by liquid staking protocols and DEXs.
Among the 10 largest dApps on Solana by TVL, Raydium showed the most significant monthly growth, with TVL up 42% to $1.2 billion, while Jupiter saw a 20% increase in TVL to 1 .2 billion, making it the third largest DEX on the network. based on the locked value.
On the liquid staking front, Sanctum saw a 31% increase in TVL, thanks to the launch of liquid staking tokens (LST) from centralized exchanges, such as Binance Staked SOL and Bybit Staked SOL. Together, these tokens added approximately $115 million to Solana’s liquid staking business.
Jito and Marinade also saw double-digit TVL growth last month, with TVL up 12.4% and 17.1%, respectively.
The base exceeds 2 billion dollars
The layer 2 blockchain base Ethereum has seen significant growth in TVL this year, jumping 420% year-to-date. The trend continued in September, with the network seeing a 51% increase in TVL, which crossed the $2 billion mark for the first time.
Similar to Solana, user funds locked on DEXs have been the biggest contributors to growth, with an additional push from money market and DeFi yield protocols.
Aerodrome surpassed $1.1 billion in TVL in September, marking 95.6% growth during the month and establishing itself as the largest dApp in the base.
Money Market Aave also posted a significant increase in TVL, up 43.3% last month, while Moonwell’s saw monthly TVL growth of 47%. Additionally, Extra Finance, a leveraged yield protocol available on Base, saw its TVL increase by 40% during the month.
Sui, Aptos
The Sui movement-based blockchain showed the most relevant winning percentage among the 10 largest TVL blockchains last month. It surpassed the $1 billion TVL mark for the first time, with monthly growth of 83%.
Meanwhile, Aptos, another Move-based blockchain, saw considerable growth last month, reaching nearly $934 million in TVL after a monthly growth rate of 36.6%.
Both networks were primarily driven by increased activity on DEXs and liquid staking protocols, with major protocols seeing significant increases in TVL.